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Age of Mythology

Age of Mythology. Scripting Guide. Outline. Game overview Adding your agent to the game Renaming your agent AI vs. AI: we’re almost there AI vs. AI setup Setting up the AI debugger Scripting overview AI library reference Sample code from default AI Explanation of sample code

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Age of Mythology

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  1. Age of Mythology Scripting Guide

  2. Outline • Game overview • Adding your agent to the game • Renaming your agent • AI vs. AI: we’re almost there • AI vs. AI setup • Setting up the AI debugger • Scripting overview • AI library reference • Sample code from default AI • Explanation of sample code • Link to AoM scripting website

  3. Game overview • Age of Mythology is a real-time-strategy game where players start by choosing one of three civilizations: the Greek, the Egyptian, or the Norse. Players choose the gods they wish to worship, and each god provides different strengths for the player's civilization. Players then wage war against other armies and must lead their civilization to victory by managing their civilization’s military and economy. • In addition, the game allows you to create AI scripts that control the computer players which you play against in the game. This guide shows how to set up Age of Mythology for AI scripting, how to play AI vs. AI games, and provides a brief description of AoM scripting.

  4. Adding your agent to the game • The code for your agent is saved as a .xs file (e.g. admiral.xs). • Your agent appears in the player-select drop down menu when you add the .xml file. • To add your agent to the game simply: • Add your xs file to AoM's AI folder. • Add your xml file to AoM's AI folder. • If you want to rename your agent, you’ll need to edit the xml file as shown in the next slide.

  5. Renaming your agent • To rename your agent you need to edit your xml file, it should look something like this: <AI> <script>the name of your xs file without the file extension</script> <name> the name of your agent</name> <playerNames> <name>the name of your agent</name> </playerNames> </AI> • For example, if our agent is admiral.xs, then we need an xml file to go with it. We can name it admiral.xml and it should look like this: <AI> <script>admiral</script> <name>Admiral AI</name> <playerNames> <name>Admiral AI</name> </playerNames> </AI>

  6. AI vs. AI: we’re almost there • After adding your agent to the AI folder, its name should appear in the list of computer player opponents, and you can play against your agent. • However, if you want to play AI vs. AI random map games then we have more work to do because AoM doesn’t have a graphical interface for assigning an AI script to player 1. • The next slide shows how to set up AI vs. AI matches by using a text editor such as WordPad to edit a .prf file, which tells the game that player 1 will be controlled by an AI script.

  7. AI vs. AI setup • To run AI vs. AI battles you'll need to take these steps: • Create a new profile in the options screen, named AIvsAI (or anything else) • Using that profile, start a 1v1 random map game (you vs. AI) • Quit a few seconds in and exit AoM • Open AIvsAI.prf in the users folder and scroll down to playerid 0 data (shown below) • Set aiscript to your xml file • Set type to 1 • Save AIvsAI.prf. Your playerdata section for playerid 0 would look like this: <singleplayerrandommapdata> <playerdata> <playerid>0</playerid> <aiscript>name of your xml file without the file extension</aiscript> <type>1</type> <civilization>9</civilization> </playerdata> • When you want to set up AI vs. AI battles select the AIvsAI profile. • When you want to change player 1’s agent, update the aiscript value in AIvsAI.prf.

  8. Setting up the AI debugger • The following changes provide access to AI debugging info. Without this, if your script has an error the compiler will tell you, but the compiler will not tell you on what line it detected the error. To find the error type “Alt-Shift-d”. If your agent compiled successfully and you want to see what goes on behind the scenes, type “Alt-q”. • Create a user.cfg file in your AoM startup directory, and include these three lines in it: aiDebug showAIEchoes developer • Create a user.con file in the AoM startup directory, and add this line: map ("alt-shift-d", "root","gadgetToggle(\"XSDebugger\")")

  9. Scripting overview • Age of Mythology’s AI uses a new language called XS (expert system), which combines the simplicity of a rule-based system with the power of the C++ language. In XS, most of the time, you are sending commands to an AI library and interacting with this library. • As far as syntax is concerned, XS allows you to declare variables, write methods, and use condition statements. In almost every case with AoM scripting you will be using the int, string, and float data types; methods are declared and used in the same way that they are in C++; and there are two types of condition statements in the XS language, the if-else approach and the switch approach.

  10. AI library reference • The AI library reference is a list of AoM variables and function calls, located in AoM’s docs folder under the name “aom ai script help file.rtf”, you should become familiar with this library. • The AI library reference provides descriptions in the following manner: int aiPlanCreate( string planName, int typeName ) Creates a plan of the given name and type. • The first thing this description tells us is that the function aiPlanCreate returns an integer. The second thing we know about this function call is that we need to give it two parameters, a string and an integer. The integer it returns is the plan’s ID, which is always non-negative; the string parameter is an arbitrary name we give to the plan; and the integer parameter is an AoM constant that identifies the plan type, e.g. cPlanAttack or cPlanExplore. • The next slide has sample code from the game’s default AI. Line 18 makes a call to aiPlanCreate.

  11. Sample code from default AI • //============================================================================== • // RULE: startLandScouting • // • // grabs the first scout in the scout list and starts scouting with it. • // this rule runs just once, creates a land scouting plan, and disables itself. • //============================================================================== • rule startLandScouting // marks the start of the rule • minInterval 1 // ensures that this rule will not run more frequently than once a second • active // indicates that this rule starts out active, so it will automatically run very early in the game • { • //If no scout, go away. • if (gLandScout == -1) // tests that gLandScout has a valid value, the value was assigned elsewhere • { • xsDisableSelf(); // turns this rule off, so that we don’t create a new land scouting rule several times a second • return; // exits the startLandScouting rule • } • //Land based Scouting. • gLandExplorePlanID=aiPlanCreate("Explore_Land", cPlanExplore); // creates an explore plan, gives it a name, assigns plan ID to a variable • if (gLandExplorePlanID >= 0) // makes sure the plan creation succeeded • { • aiPlanAddUnitType(gLandExplorePlanID, gLandScout, 1, 1, 1); // adds a gLandScout unit to the plan, if there is one alive • aiPlanSetActive(gLandExplorePlanID); // activates the plan, from here on one gLandScout will explore • //Don't loop as egyptian. • if (cMyCulture == cCultureEgyptian) • aiPlanSetVariableBool(gLandExplorePlanID, cExplorePlanDoLoops, 0, false); // do not do loops, just random searches • } • //Go away now. • xsDisableSelf(); // turns this rule off • }

  12. Explanation of sample code • Line 18: gLandExplorePlanID=aiPlanCreate("Explore_Land", cPlanExplore); Creates an explore plan. An explore plan merely assigns living units to exploration, which is different from creating units for exploration. Plans know how to perform specific tasks such as exploring, gathering, attacking, defending, fishing, and many more. Each plan created generates a plan ID number. Line 18 assigns the plan’s ID number to the variable gLandExplorePlanID. You will need the plan ID later on when you set the plan’s behavior in lines 21 and 22. • Line 21: aiPlanAddUnitType(gLandExplorePlanID, gLandScout, 1, 1, 1); Assigns a unit of type gLandScout to the explore plan. The unit assigned to the plan is the unit that will explore. The arguments 1, 1, 1 represent the need, want, and max values for the assigned unit. • Line 22: aiPlanSetActive(gLandExplorePlanID); Activates the explore plan. At this point a unit of type gLandScout is exploring the map.

  13. Link to AoM scripting website • A tutorial for AI scripting, written by one of the game’s programmers is available. Download “AoM tutorial (revision 2)” from the following website: http://aom.heavengames.com/downloads/lister.php?category=ai • Another tutorial: http://aom.heavengames.com/scendesign/advanced/aiscript

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